35 replies to this topic

[Chappy]

RESOLVED - READ PG 2 FOR FIX

Hey Folks

I've recently upgraded from EMC9 to EMC10, and this issue was in both. Before I get into it I have to say that it worked properly before, with this same setup, but now it's just gone crazy. I'll supply screenshots to help illustrate. Ok, just found this forum doesn't allow screenshots..darn! I'll link to PhotoBucket I guess.

Trying to burn movies using MyDVD10 and the Menu background is totally messed up to the point of being unworkable! It's chopped into horizontal bands and misaligned (and enlarged it seems). I can't find buttons on it or edit it, but if I just let it be it will diplay properly in the burned product....(?). It's only in the MyDVD 10 interface it seems, that this display issue arises, since as I said above...if I just burn the project everything is fine, except for the fact that I can't edit the button names or anything cause I can't SEE them!
This started even with EMC9 and I figured with EMC10 now, it should work properly, but it doesn't.
If I change the background tho, it will flash with the proper display and then 3 seconds later it will go wonky again. This happens anytime I attempt to make a change, like "Edit Menu Style" or something...it'll display properly for a few seconds and then BAM...cut into bands and unintelligable!

Here's a screenshot of an image, I'll choose a simple one so you can easily see the difference:
1st, this is the image that I get in MyDVD menu - http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/3927/mydvd1ba0.jpg

This is what it's Supposed to be - http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/1678/mydvd3lf3.jpg

Here's another example. What I get in MyDVD - http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/9509/mydvd2ax1.jpg
What it's Supposed to look like - http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/3148/mydvd4jc3.jpg

I've worked in MyDVD9 many times and I'm very computer savvy, and I simply cannot find any reason for this. I have a Geforce 8800 GTS OC2 320MB card with latest drivers. Another stupid issue that just showed it's face (right now in fact), if I try to launch MyDVD10 when I have Media Center running, I get a message stating that I don't have the graphics resources to launch MyDVD10.....huh....I doubt that very much! Minimal background programs running (AV, Firewall, KB & Mouse drivers and Graphics drivers), 320MB on card RAM, 4 G's physical RAM, and 4 G's virtual memory so I doubt my resources are "used up".

Anyway, I need to figure out why my menu backgrounds are getting messed up. Any ideas are welcome...I have tried everything I can find in main and right click menu's to no avail yet.

Thx
Dave

Edited by Chappy, 04 March 2008 - 12:37 AM.

[gi7omy]

Ouit of curiosity - what are your display settings?

Specifically, what DPI is the monitor set to? If it's not 96DPI, reset to that and see what happens

[Chappy]

Hi gi7omy

NP, I prolly shoulda posted those as well.
I have a 22" 16:9 @ 1680 x 1050 with 120DPI

Funny thing is tho, that it will display the background properly for a second or 2 and then go stoopid like that, and anytime I go to make any changes, it'll switch back to a proper display again for a second...(as will any change I make), and then....AAARGGHHH!
I'll try piddlin around with some display settings but it worked on this before, so...?

Thx!
Dave

[Chappy]

Some Additional....stuff

It's really weird what's happening. Anytime I do any edit or anything that affects the background, it will dsplay properly for a bit and then go back to this huge banded image again.
When previewing the movie, it also displays banded and jumbled, as does the Preview window during the encoding process itself, but the final product is just fine...except for the fact that I can't have any buttons because it won't allow me to edit them in that state!!
AARGHHHHH!!

EMC10 reinstall didn't work, reinstalled newest ForceWare drivers = no worky, gi7omy's suggestion - Thx, but nope, still no fun.
This is totally frustrating, I can't figure out what's causing this and I happen to be dang good at fixing computers & related s'ware/h'ware issues. Been doing it for 8 years online and have been promoted to Admin at all forums I do this at cause I'ze good at it, but this one's driving me bonkers...

BTW, I LOVE that the encoding process is almost twice as fast in 10 as compared to 9. Beautiful!!! Now if I could only SEE IT!!!


P.S. - While the movie is encoding in it's little window....the MyDVD app is still visible (of course), and guess what? The background image is PERFECT...go figure.
Example - http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8776/eaie3.jpg

Edited by Chappy, 21 October 2007 - 12:54 AM.

[gi7omy]

OK - couple of points from your posts that may or may not be relevant

1: "I have to say that it worked properly before, with this same setup, but now it's just gone crazy."

What have you done, if anything, since it last worked properly? (installed, updated, removed, etc)? If it worked and then developed a fault something is causing it

2: You say you are editing in MyDVD - did you try editing in VideoWave and importing that?

3: The reported lack of graphics resources may be down to Media Centre grabbing a huge chunk for its own use and leaving EMC to struggle on whatever is left. In general, when rendering, you need to shut down as much as possible and let the rendering process run uninterrupted.

4: v10 doesn't really render any faster than v9. Any apparent gain could well be down to a faster system (with the e6750 I found rendering really speeded up, but that is down to the 4 MB L2 cache as opposed to the older 512K one that I had earlier)

5: Your screen dumps look more like a graphics anomaly -in that the middle section seems to be delayed for some reason (starting a fraction of a second after they should) which would account for the 'stepped' appearance. If it was a TV, I'd say 'sync separation' but it's not, so I won't The squashed appearance is puzzling - it's as if you were encoding in widescreen and looking at it in 4:3

Just some thoughts on it - maybe there's something there that can point you in the right direction

[grandpabruce]

Hi gi7omy

NP, I prolly shoulda posted those as well.
I have a 22" 16:9 @ 1680 x 1050 with 120DPI

Funny thing is tho, that it will display the background properly for a second or 2 and then go stoopid like that, and anytime I go to make any changes, it'll switch back to a proper display again for a second...(as will any change I make), and then....AAARGGHHH!
I'll try piddlin around with some display settings but it worked on this before, so...?

Thx!
Dave

Dave, I have a 24" 16:9 Samsung @ 1920x1200 with 96 DPI, and I don't have the display problem that you showed in you links.  Did you try changing to 96 DPI?

[ggrussell]

My display is 1920X1080 and I use 96dpi also with no problems.  Change your display to 96dpi.  we've seen other display problems with WinXP set at 120dpi, too (dialog box text, etc.)

Edited by ggrussell, 21 October 2007 - 11:52 AM.

[Chappy]

Hi Folks

First, Thx much for the replies!
I'll start at the top.

What changed? Well, it's a fresh install...so allot I guess. It was fine with the old install but after WinUpdate became unrepairably corrupt, so much so that even MS Support couldn't help, I did a clean reinstall. The first install was also corrupted and I did another the next day, which had no errors in the setup log and WUpdate was working correctly now so this one has been stable for 3 months now.
I installed EMC9 again and it immediately started this quirk. I was already planning on EMC10 so I upgraded right then, uninstalled EMC9 in Safe Mode, and installed 10 after rebooting back into safe mode again. It also immediately showed this quirky behavior.

I have tried VideoWave to do this but again, it still displays like that. And yes, Media Center does use a fair chunk of resources, but I was able to run both before (with EMC9) so it's puzzling why it's saying this now.
I read on Roxio that 10 was considerably faster encoding than 9 was, and from what I saw...it is.
I've tried almost as much as I can think of so far, but maybe something here will jog a new thought somewhere, Thx again gi7omy!

Bruce & ggrussell - I tried it back at 96DPI with no change in behavior. What really gets me about this isthat it will display properly for a few seconds and then switch to the enlarged and banded display. Then all during the encoding process, it displays properly...huh??
I'm wondering if he latest Geforce ForceWare graphics driver (which BTW, is STILL in Beta) is the culprit here. I saved the installers from earlier drivers so I'll have to try and remember which one it was when this last worked, and possibly roll back to an older driver to test this theory. Hopefully I've saved them from far enough back...

Thanx ALLOT guys!!
That's why these forums work so darn well, great people with good ideas and with me being very literate myself...we should be able to work something out (hopefully), or come up with some more workable ideas.

Take Care, and Keep Em Coming Folks!! All ideas are welcome! (except to reinstall Vista that is... )
Dave

P.S. - Bruce....VERY Cute lil Granddaughters!!! I'll bet they're your Lil Angels eh.. I have a Grandson and a Granddaughter myself so I know how proud you are. Keep up the good work Grampa!!

Edited by Chappy, 21 October 2007 - 03:35 PM.

[grandpabruce]

Hi Folks

First, Thx much for the replies!
I'll start at the top.

What changed? Well, it's a fresh install...so allot I guess. It was fine with the old install but after WinUpdate became unrepairably corrupt, so much so that even MS Support couldn't help, I did a clean reinstall. The first install was also corrupted and I did another the next day, which had no errors in the setup log and WUpdate was working correctly now so this one has been stable for 3 months now.
I installed EMC9 again and it immediately started this quirk. I was already planning on EMC10 so I upgraded right then, uninstalled EMC9 in Safe Mode, and installed 10 after rebooting back into safe mode again. It also immediately showed this quirky behavior.

I have tried VideoWave to do this but again, it still displays like that. And yes, Media Center does use a fair chunk of resources, but I was able to run both before (with EMC9) so it's puzzling why it's saying this now.
I read on Roxio that 10 was considerably faster encoding than 9 was, and from what I saw...it is.
I've tried almost as much as I can think of so far, but maybe something here will jog a new thought somewhere, Thx again gi7omy!

Bruce & ggrussell - I tried it back at 96DPI with no change in behavior. What really gets me about this isthat it will display properly for a few seconds and then switch to the enlarged and banded display. Then all during the encoding process, it displays properly...huh??
I'm wondering if he latest Geforce ForceWare graphics driver (which BTW, is STILL in Beta) is the culprit here. I saved the installers from earlier drivers so I'll have to try and remember which one it was when this last worked, and possibly roll back to an older driver to test this theory. Hopefully I've saved them from far enough back...

Thanx ALLOT guys!!
That's why these forums work so darn well, great people with good ideas and with me being very literate myself...we should be able to work something out (hopefully), or come up with some more workable ideas.

Take Care, and Keep Em Coming Folks!! All ideas are welcome! (except to reinstall Vista that is... )
Dave

I am running the 93.71 drivers.  I did not like the 162.18's, and I didn't even bother dowloading the latest drivers.  The 93.71's are running just fine.

[Chappy]

Hi Bruce

I'm at 163.75 for the geforce 8 series. What card do you have? I think the 7600's are the ones still at low 160.xx's drivers if I remember correctly. I get mine directly from the Beta release page for developers. It seems most updates are for certain game compatability issues lately, but they still say "Various comaptability/stability fixes" in the release notes so I stay as current as possible.
I am definitely leaning the way of a driver rollback here. I'll post any changes noted, or the lack of too. You guys work on some new ideas I may have missed and we'll get this bugger working again soon.
I did mention that an EMC10 reinstall made no diff either right??

Later
Dave

[grandpabruce]

Hi Bruce

I'm at 163.75 for the geforce 8 series. What card do you have? I think the 7600's are the ones still at low 160.xx's drivers if I remember correctly. I get mine directly from the Beta release page for developers. It seems most updates are for certain game compatability issues lately, but they still say "Various comaptability/stability fixes" in the release notes so I stay as current as possible.
I am definitely leaning the way of a driver rollback here. I'll post any changes noted, or the lack of too. You guys work on some new ideas I may have missed and we'll get this bugger working again soon.
I did mention that an EMC10 reinstall made no diff either right??

Later
Dave

My video card is listed in my signature.  It is the 7900GT.

Yeah, grandkids are the greatest.  I just wished they live a lot closer to us.

[Chappy]

My video card is listed in my signature. It is the 7900GT

Uhhhh....right..LOL!!
Sorry Gramps, I'm so used to viewing forum threads that I kinda ignore sigs sometimes.
Too bad your grandkids aren't closer, I'm sure you would enjoy that.

I've been trying absolutely everything to find whats happening with no luck. I just can't understand why it will display properly for a few seconds anytime I move/edit/change/undo/do anything/ and then do the weird thing. I've even "extracted" the image to the desktop when it's like that and it turns out that it's just fine, it's all about how the app displays it in whatever component I have it open in.
I think I'm at my wits end here, I have seriously tried EVERYTHING!

I may have to start a support ticket with Roxio and see what they have to say about it.
All ideas are still welcome!

Dave

[grandpabruce]

Uhhhh....right..LOL!!
Sorry Gramps, I'm so used to viewing forum threads that I kinda ignore sigs sometimes.
Too bad your grandkids aren't closer, I'm sure you would enjoy that.

I've been trying absolutely everything to find whats happening with no luck. I just can't understand why it will display properly for a few seconds anytime I move/edit/change/undo/do anything/ and then do the weird thing. I've even "extracted" the image to the desktop when it's like that and it turns out that it's just fine, it's all about how the app displays it in whatever component I have it open in.
I think I'm at my wits end here, I have seriously tried EVERYTHING!

I may have to start a support ticket with Roxio and see what they have to say about it.
All ideas are still welcome!

Dave

Now you have me wondering if it is some setting, in the video card software, that is fouling things up.  What are your settings for Performance and Quality?  I am shooting in the dark here, but there has got to be something.  I would hope you video card isn't going bad.  If it is an 8000 series card, it isn't low end.

Edited by grandpabruce, 21 October 2007 - 06:30 PM.

[Chappy]

Definitely NOT low end Bruce, BFG 8800GTS OC2 320MB.

I'm on a different tangent right now. I'm thinking it's what EMC10 uses as it's display engine inside the apps. There has to be an interior engine to generate the images and previews right, because it can't really be onboard/PCI-E graphics card dependant due to the overwhelming amount of different setups...so I'm wondering what core component (cineplayer maybe?) Roxio uses to generate them with. I mean, the users graphics engine creates the final display product of course, but Roxio must use an internal engine to generate/modify the info sent to the users graphics engine for onscreen display....correct?

I have some custom profiles for the only games I play, MS FSX (Flight Sim), and Test Drive Unlimited. Basically all I use most is the flight sim but it's a seperate profile that is only loaded as needed, all other settings are default basically. I'm going to try turning off Inverse Telecine and some other stuff in the Nvidia CPL just to see but at the moment I'm kinda losing hope here.

Thx Bruce!
Ideas anyone?

Dave

[ggrussell]

nVidia has been getting a lot of flack because of poor driver for the 8800 and Vista.  maybe they haven't gotten everything ironed out yet.  Videowave and MyDVD do indeed off load some rendering to the video card's GPU and also use DirectX extensively.  You may need to setup a profile just for EMC 10. Reduce some of the acceleration or something like that.  Any chance there is a DirectX 9 compatibility mode?

Edited by ggrussell, 21 October 2007 - 07:41 PM.

[Chappy]

Hi Gary

Yah, the driver issue has been a big sore point with MANY 8800 owners 4 sure! They actually had to post for members to stop threatening Legal Actions on their forums..unless they can produce a court order to back it up...!!
As I get time I guess, I'll have to really test out the driver settings to see if it's because of that. AFAIK, there isn't a way to toggle DirectX compatability modes, at least I haven't seen anything for that and I've been all thru the CPL many-many times.
There are 3rd party tools that are widely used that may do that tho, RivaTuner is a well known power tool for Nvidia cards and Nhancer too. I have RivaTuner and use it to control the GPU fan settings mostly, 75% normal - 85% over 65C - 100% over 70C. It's a very complex tool and I'm a rookie with it so it could possibly do that.

I'm really stumped on this one guys...it's just too strange how it's acting and reinstall does nothing, so it HAS to be...lordy, I dunno anymore.Is it an external setting doing it, is it a corrupt d'load from Roxio (MD5/SHA hash checked out tho), why is it fine for a sec and then go bad....so many questions. This is gonna drive me nuts till we find out what's causing it, if we ever do.
Well, it's time to do some serious testing so I'll be down for a bit. Keep the thoughts coming tho, I'd even consider Solar Flares as a cause right now...maybe Venus is off kilter too...

Dave

[grandpabruce]

Hi Gary

Yah, the driver issue has been a big sore point with MANY 8800 owners 4 sure! They actually had to post for members to stop threatening Legal Actions on their forums..unless they can produce a court order to back it up...!!
As I get time I guess, I'll have to really test out the driver settings to see if it's because of that. AFAIK, there isn't a way to toggle DirectX compatability modes, at least I haven't seen anything for that and I've been all thru the CPL many-many times.
There are 3rd party tools that are widely used that may do that tho, RivaTuner is a well known power tool for Nvidia cards and Nhancer too. I have RivaTuner and use it to control the GPU fan settings mostly, 75% normal - 85% over 65C - 100% over 70C. It's a very complex tool and I'm a rookie with it so it could possibly do that.

I'm really stumped on this one guys...it's just too strange how it's acting and reinstall does nothing, so it HAS to be...lordy, I dunno anymore.Is it an external setting doing it, is it a corrupt d'load from Roxio (MD5/SHA hash checked out tho), why is it fine for a sec and then go bad....so many questions. This is gonna drive me nuts till we find out what's causing it, if we ever do.
Well, it's time to do some serious testing so I'll be down for a bit. Keep the thoughts coming tho, I'd even consider Solar Flares as a cause right now...maybe Venus is off kilter too...

Dave

I would try rolling back the drivers on the video card.  You can always go back to the ones you have now, if they don't work.

[Chappy]

Hi Bruce

Yah, I did that last night. I rolled back to the oldest driver I had and it made no difference. I even uninstalled & reinstalled EMC10 again and it's the same thing.

I think I'm leaning towards the graphics driver losing it's compatibility with EMC somehow (since it was working before with 9) and I'm going to contact the Nvidia developers to possibly look into this. So far most of the complaints on Nvidia forums are for certain game comaptibility issues, which is expected I guess, but nothing on EMC or Nero issues in rendering previews or things like I'm getting. Maybe they'll stumble on something that broke this while it fixed something else, certainly wouldn't be the first time as we all know.... Over the many years folks like us have been doing this, we've seen our fair share of one fix breaking something else so this is completely feasible here too.

As for now, I really think I've done just about all I can think of doing. I'm going to start a support ticket with Roxio to see what they can find, and I'm gonna work with Nvidia driver developers to see where they think it could be too.
With mine being the only issue we've seen like this to date, that does worry me a bit, but it could be that I'm just the first so far. Still driving me nuts trying to figure out why it'll display properly for a few seconds when making any changes, and then go huge and banded like it does. What is affecting the display in just the preview/edit frame, leaving the rest of the window intact? If I could duplicate this behavior in some other editing program's preview pane, then that would point to an Nvidia driver problem I think, but so far I haven't seen this in anything else...so far. I've been so focused on EMC that I haven't done much of anything else yet but I'm going to do some testing like that tonite.

Thx again guys, you've been great and helpful! Unfortunately tho, it may just be out of anything that's "user fixable", but hopefully we'll find out what that is.

Dave

Edited by Chappy, 22 October 2007 - 04:51 PM.

[grandpabruce]

Hi Bruce

Yah, I did that last night. I rolled back to the oldest driver I had and it made no difference. I even uninstalled & reinstalled EMC10 again and it's the same thing.

I think I'm leaning towards the graphics driver losing it's compatibility with EMC somehow (since it was working before with 9) and I'm going to contact the Nvidia developers to possibly look into this. So far most of the complaints on Nvidia forums are for certain game comaptibility issues, which is expected I guess, but nothing on EMC or Nero issues in rendering previews or things like I'm getting. Maybe they'll stumble on something that broke this while it fixed something else, certainly wouldn't be the first time as we all know.... Over the many years folks like us have been doing this, we've seen our fair share of one fix breaking something else so this is completely feasible here too.

As for now, I really think I've done just about all I can think of doing. I'm going to start a support ticket with Roxio to see what they can find, and I'm gonna work with Nvidia driver developers to see where they think it could be too.
With mine being the only issue we've seen like this to date, that does worry me a bit, but it could be that I'm just the first so far. Still driving me nuts trying to figure out why it'll display properly for a few seconds when making any changes, and then go huge and banded like it does. What is affecting the display in just the preview/edit frame, leaving the rest of the window intact? If I could duplicate this behavior in some other editing program's preview pane, then that would point to an Nvidia driver problem I think, but so far I haven't seen this in anything else...so far. I've been so focused on EMC that I haven't done much of anything else yet but I'm going to do some testing like that tonite.

Thx again guys, you've been great and helpful! Unfortunately tho, it may just be out of anything that's "user fixable", but hopefully we'll find out what that is.

Dave

Talk to NVidia, and see what they say.  Ask them the possibility of the video card going south on you.

[ggrussell]

If I could duplicate this behavior in some other editing program's preview pane,

Most other editors don't use DirectX commands like Videowave/MyDVD so you may never duplicate it.

Any chance you have tried forcing software render in Videowave/MyDVD?  Go to Tools/Options. At the top of that dialog box, you will see two radial buttons labeled hardware and software.  If on hardware, click on software and then OK.  Try a preview and see what happens.

Edited by ggrussell, 22 October 2007 - 08:16 PM.